John Oliver: ‘You need to be careful, and I know that sounds boring.’
Photograph: YouTube

John Oliver gave audiences a detailed introduction to the world of cryptocurrencies in this week’s episode of Last Week Tonight with a cautionary reminder of the pitfalls.

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On his HBO show, the British comic started by talking about bitcoin. “Everything you don’t understand about money combined with everything you don’t understand about computers,” he said as a description.

Oliver covered the much-publicized rise of bitcoin in comparison to how it was viewed not long before. “Just a few years ago you’d only hear about bitcoin from that one guy in your office who wouldn’t shut up about it,” he said.

But it’s not been without hiccups. “A bitcoin conference stopped taking bitcoin, which is a red flag since that’s the one place you’d think it would be accepted,” he said. “It’s like when I tried to pay for access to the Republican National Convention using Ronald Reagan’s dusty skeleton bones.”

He expanded his discussion to cryptocurrency in general and spoke about how tokens are required to start one and how one company made $35m in 30 seconds after obtaining some.

“Normally when someone makes that much money that fast they did it by walking up to Bill O’Reilly, sitting in silence for 26 seconds and saying ‘I recorded our phone calls’,” he joked.

Oliver continued: “Many people are buying coins for no reason other than other people are buying them.”

There have been a multitude of companies getting into the game yet some have already faltered. “I am not saying that every cryptocoin is a scam, just as I’m not saying that every blockchain company is bullshit,” he said. “What I am saying is: in a speculative mania, it can be very hard to tell which companies are for real.”

He used an example of a company raising massive amounts of money via cryptocurrency without actually having an idea of what their business is yet. “The point is: if you choose to invest in the cryptocurrency space, just know that you’re not investing, you’re gambling. Which is fine, but you should know that is what you’re doing and prices do go down,” he said.

He ended by warning: “The important thing to remember here is: this is a brand new, very complicated space and literally nobody knows how it’s going to develop so you need to be careful and I know that sounds boring.”